1 <sect1 id="release-5-00">
2 <title>Release notes for version 5.00 (April 2001)</title>
5 <title>User-visible compiler changes</title>
8 <para>GHCi, the new interactive environment on top of GHC, has
9 been added (<xref linkend="ghci">).</para>
12 <para>New <option>--make</option> flag added (<xref
13 linkend="make-mode">).</para>
16 <para>The native code generator now supports Sparc in addition
20 <para>We now make it clear which options can be placed in an
21 OPTIONS pragma. See <xref
22 linkend="static-dynamic-flags">.</para>
25 <para><option>-fglasgow-exts</option> no longer implies
26 <option>-package lang</option>.</para>
29 <para><option>-noC</option> is no more.</para>
32 <para><option>-hi</option> and <option>-nohi</option> are no more.</para>
35 <para>The concept of “packages” has been
36 generalised and extended. Packages may be installed or
37 removed from an existing GHC installation using the new
38 <command>ghc-pkg</command> tool. See <xref
39 linkend="packages">.</para>
42 <para>Initial unicode support: the <literal>Char</literal>
43 type is now 31 bits. We don't yet have support for unicode
47 <para><option>-v</option> now takes an optional numeric
48 argument indicating the level of verbosity (<xref
49 linkend="options-help">). <option>-dshow-passes</option> has
53 <para>Parallel list comprehensions added. See <xref
54 linkend="parallel-list-comprehensions">.</para>
57 <para>Profiling: please use
58 <literal>{-# SCC ".." #-}</literal>
59 rather than <literal>_scc_ "..."</literal>. The latter
60 will be phased out in due course.</para>
63 <para>A new experimental optimisation, SpecConstr, is turned
64 on with <literal>-O2</literal>.</para>
67 <para>Please report bugs using the <ulink
68 url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghc/">SourceForge bug
69 tracker</ulink> instead of
70 <email>glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org</email> if
74 <para>Documentation changes: there's now a useful Flag
75 Reference section, see <xref linkend="flag-reference">.</para>
78 <para>Many, many, bugfixes.</para>
84 <title>New experimental features</title>
88 <para>A “front panel” for GHC-compiled programs
89 displays real-time graphs of memory behaviour in a GTK+
90 window. You need to recompile the RTS with front panel
91 support to use this.</para>
97 <title>FFI changes</title>
100 <para><command>hsc2hs</command> added (<xref linkend="hsc2hs">).</para>
103 <para>FFI libraries have been updated to the latest proposal
104 from the FFI task force. Too many changes to list here, see
105 the docs: <xref linkend="sec-Foreign">.</para>
111 <title>User-visible library changes</title>
114 <para><function>putMVar</function> now blocks if the
115 <literal>MVar</literal> is already full. The
116 <literal>PutFullMVar</literal> exception no longer exists. A
117 non-blocking version of <function>putMVar</function>,
118 <function>tryPutMVar</function>, has been added (<xref
119 linkend="sec-MVars">).</para>
122 <para>The <literal>Int</literal> and
123 <literal>Integer</literal> types now have instances of
124 <literal>Bits</literal> (<xref linkend="sec-Bits">).</para>
127 <para>Package <literal>hssource</literal> has been added. It
128 contains a Haskell 98 abstract syntax, parser, lexer and pretty
129 printer. No documentation yet.</para>
132 <para>The methods <literal>fromInt</literal> and
133 <literal>toInt</literal>, which used to be in class
134 <literal>Num</literal> but exported from module
135 <literal>Int</literal>, are no longer in class
136 <literal>Num</literal>. They're still available from module
137 <literal>Int</literal>, however.</para>
139 <para>In most cases, there should be no benefit from using
140 <literal>fromInt</literal> instead of
141 <literal>fromIntegral</literal>, which is specialised for all
142 integral types.</para>
148 <title>Build system changes</title>
152 <para>The <literal>WithGhcHc</literal> setting in
153 <literal>build.mk</literal> has been replaced by the
154 <literal>--with-ghc=<replaceable>ghc</replaceable></literal>
155 option to <literal>configure</literal>. The new option
156 <emphasis>must</emphasis> be used if you intend to use
157 anything except “<literal>ghc</literal>” to
158 bootstrap GHC, in order that the build system can figure out
159 what version of GHC you're using.</para>
162 <para>Source distributions are now made by doing <literal>make
163 distclean</literal> in a build tree, instead of requiring a
164 linked build tree.</para>
170 <title>Internal changes</title>
173 <para>Many internal compiler changes: too many to list
177 <para>The old perl driver has been removed and replaced by a
178 driver in the compiler proper.</para>
181 <para>We now use GMP 3 instead of GMP 2 for
182 arbitrary-precision integer support.</para>
185 <para>Several libraries rewritten to use the FFI.</para>
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